Seven atom transistor sets the pace for future PCs
Researchers have shown off a transistor made from just seven atoms that could be used to create smaller, more powerful computers.
Transistors are tiny switches used as the building blocks of silicon chips.
If the new atomic transistor can be made in large numbers it could mean chips with components up to 100 times smaller than on existing processors.
The Australian creators of the transistor hope it is also a step towards a solid-state quantum computer.
The transistor is not the smallest ever created as two research groups have previously managed to produce working single-atom transistors.
However, the device is many times smaller than the components found in chips in contemporary computers. On chips where components are 22 nanometres in size, transistor gates are about 42 atoms across.
"Now we have just demonstrated the world's first electronic device in silicon systematically created on the scale of individual atoms," said Professor Michelle Simmons, lead researcher on the project at the University of New South Wales.
If an entire chip could be made with every one of its billions of transistors made from the silicon crystals, it could mean an "exponential" leap in processing power, said Professor Simmons.
